This is an archive of the 2013 version of ocTEL.

#ocTEL Activity 0.1: My Big Question?

Posted on by Jo-ann Larkins Posted in Blog posts, Course Reader
I've been pondering My Big Question for the use of TEL in my teaching for the last week or so. It's been an amorphous sort of  blob of an idea swimming around in the depths, resistant to taking a concrete form. It's been teasing and eluding me.

So, I went back to the acronyms and tried to define what they mean to me.

TEL = Technology Enhanced Learning. What does this mean in a practical, at the coal-face sense in my day to day teaching?
  • Do I use the technology primarily as a tool to aid my student's learning? 
  • Am I only seeking to use the technology to mimic what I know works in building understanding in a face to face setting for remote and online students? 
  • Is technology just serving as 'bells and whistles' to keep generation X and Y entertained and awake in my classes? Is technology making me a performer rather than a teacher?
  • Or is the forced use of certain technologies (i.e: compulsory use of Moodle as a VLE at my University) that dictates how I teach? Do I twist the way I do things just to make use of the technology available?

Man the Master, not the Slave of Technology 1952
National Polytechnic Institute, Mexico City, Mexico
Pyroxylin on aluminum 
 
I don't know the answers. The questions sort of worry me and make me vaguely uneasy about what I'm currently doing. But I do know my big question.

In creating real learning, is technology the master or the servant?

I suspect this is a sort of chicken and egg sort of philosophical argument.
About

I teach compulsory first year statistics courses at a small regional campus of a large Australian University across a number of departments mainly science and Business and Economics. Some of my students are studying totally online. For light relief and preservation of my sanity, I also teach reading writing and research skills to second year science students.

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